Elmendorf: Health Care Plan Too Costly
On Thursday that House Democrats pushed ahead with legislation that would deliver on Obama’s promise to remake the health care system and cover some 50 million uninsured. This action was approved despite concerns from their own party’s moderate and conservative lawmakers that the $1.5 trillion plan costs too much.
Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf warned that the Democrats’ health care bills won’t meet President Barack Obama’s goal of slowing the ruinous rise of medical costs, giving weight to critics who say the legislation could break the bank. He stressed that their health care proposals would raise costs, not lower them.
Elmendorf explained: “In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said “The director of the Congressional Budget Office confirmed today what we have been saying for weeks — the health care spending plan that some are trying to rush through Congress would actually make things worse.”
White House officials glossed over the significance of the budget director’s assessment “At the end of the day, we’ll have significant cost controls,” presidential adviser David Axelrod told The Associated Press.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed as “a waste of money” a television ad campaign by Obama’s political organization aiming to nudge moderates of both parties off the fence. He called it “Democrats running ads against Democrats.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of made it clear that Democrats still plan to tax the rich and said if the money isn’t needed to pay for health care it would be directed at the nation’s budget deficit.
“There is going to be a revenue change at the high end,” she said. “It will be directly to reduce the deficit or by helping to cover the cost of this initiative.”
The cost of success is about to go up – a lot!
